The Christmas Challenge is back for the eighth year running, offering charity supporters the chance to have their donations doubled.

The Christmas Challenge is the UK’s biggest online match-funding campaign which helps UK-registered charities raise funds for their causes. Selected charities taking part in the Challenge will have the donations they receive doubled for a limited time period. The Christmas Challenge was launched in 2008 by Sir Alec Reed, founder of Reed Recruitment. Since 2008, the initiative has raised over £64 million for 2,271 charity projects.

The 2015 Christmas Challenge launches at 12pm (midday) on Friday 4th December when the first tranche of match funding will be released. A second tranche of match funding will be released on Saturday 5th December at 12pm. There are over 250 charities participating for donors to choose from covering a wide variety of interests.

Match funding is provided by a range of philanthropic organisations, called ‘Champions’. This year, Champions include The Reed Foundation, The Childhood Trust, Candis Magazine, and The Lake House Foundation amongst others. These Champions funds are joined with pledges from the charities’ own major donors to double online donations during the Christmas Challenge on a first-come, first-served basis.

“We are extremely excited about this year’s Christmas Challenge”, said Alex Day, Director of the Big Give. “There are some amazing charities participating. We know the ‘double your donation’ offering proves extremely popular with supporters. We hope this year will be a fantastic experience for all of those taking part and raise many millions of pounds for some wonderful causes.”

Demand is expected to be high so donors wishing to have their donation doubled should visit theBigGive.org.uk to make a donation as close after 12pm (midday) on Friday 4thand Saturday 5th December. Any match funding remaining will expire on Monday 14th December.